CHARLESTON, S.C. — Arcadia Publishing announced the publication of World War II and the Pennsylvania Wilds, a new history of the area by author Kathleen Myers.

The Pennsylvania Wilds comprise a tiny fraction of the state’s population, but when the United States entered World War II, the Wilds responded with characteristic courage and determination. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, young men rushed to recruitment centers to serve. Many returned as heroes. Many never returned, paying the ultimate sacrifice.

Not to be left out, numerous women filled the ranks of Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps or became navy nurses overseas. On the homefront, workers bused in to fill vacancies left by those who went to war flooded the small towns of the Wilds, and all across the region, people stepped up to provide defense services and to plant victory gardens.

Compiling contemporary news accounts, letters and firsthand accounts, historian Myers celebrates and commemorates the region’s intrepid war efforts at home and abroad.

Myers is a native of Ridgway, Pa. The seventh generation of her family to live in the Wilds, she is a historian, genealogist and writer. She is a member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, the founder and past governor of the Winslow Heritage Society, a member of the DuBois Area Historical Society and a member of the Jefferson County Historical Society. Myers is a juried member of the Wilds Cooperative of Pennsylvania.

This is her fourth book with Arcadia Publishing/The History Press.